1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for monitoring a plurality of object types of a plurality of nodes from a management node in a data processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a distributed management environment makes it possible to integrate the management of systems, networks and user applications. The management applications are designed so as to advantageously hide from the user the detailed steps necessary to execute management tasks and to guarantee the integrity of the management information. These applications manage objects by using clear and concise interfaces with the common management services. The common management services make it possible to simplify the development of management applications. Management information base services, usually referred to by one skilled in the art as MIBs (Management Information Bases), allow management applications to manipulate this management information; these services preferably use the applicable standards such as the OSI CMIS/CMIP (Open Systems Interconnection Common Management Information Services/Common Management Information Protocol) and Internet SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) standards. A managed object, in this data processing environment, is a representation of a resource such as a machine, a file, a peripheral, a user, an application, etc. An MIB, which is in fact a set of objects, represents the various resources to be managed in a system. An object of a MIB is defined by an object class (corresponding to an object type) and an instance of this object class. A request is sent by an application in order to consult and/or modify an object of the MIB; it is characterized by the type of operation to be applied to one or more of the objects of the MIB. The efficient operation of this type of distributed management environment requires a flexible architecture which allows easy management of different types of objects. More formally, in an environment of this type, the data processing systems are built on distributed architectures, which means that the services required by an application are located in a plurality of systems which communicate with one another, such as for example, transaction processing systems, data base management systems (DBMS), printing services, security systems, directories, etc. This sharing or distribution provides great flexibility and allows significant gains in performance ("cluster"); however, increasing the number of systems to be managed poses a problem, since this increase also has the effect of significantly increasing the probability of abnormal operation in at least one system. One solution to this problem consists of developing management systems controlled by a "manager" (as it is known to one skilled in the art) which controls and directs an entire system through agents whose sole purpose is to execute the requests from the manager, mainly using functions of the "get" or "set" type, and to inform this manager of events related to the system monitored, using a function of the "trap" type. The use of the SNMP protocol and SNMP agents is a current example of an application with this type of organization, which has the main advantage of being simple, but which nevertheless has notable drawbacks, the first of which is that it generates a large amount of traffic on the line between the manager and the agents for the transmission of requests, of the responses to these requests, and of events. Another important drawback relates to the slow reaction time when an event occurs, which is due to the fact that the agent in question must first inform the manager of this event, and the manager must then make a manual or automatic decision relative to this event in order to transmit it to this agent, which in turn executes it and finally reports it to the manager.